In the morning, we’ll stop at Wawa or Dunkin' Donuts for a cup of coffee rather than taking the time to make it. Our homes are stocked with bottled water instead of reusable water bottles. We opt for the elevator over the stairs. We participate in the fundraiser walks for cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s, but won’t take thirty minutes out of our day for exercise which can prevent these ills.
Pollution, obesity and disease are all inconvenient truths. Most people choose to ignore these truths because they are always looking for the easy way out. It is not convenient to admit when we are wrong. It is much easier to place the blame on another or to make excuses for our faults.
I sat down last night and hand wrote a letter to an old friend, someone who was in my life for many years, someone who I felt was owed an apology.
Apologies aren't always convenient, but they are the right thing to do.
Here's the way this thing works...ideas come to mind and I write them down...words pop into my head and I write them down. Sometimes they sit with me for a long time and sometimes they're fleshed out in an instant.
A couple days ago the words "so small" popped into my head...and, for those of you who listen to Country Music, it had nothing to do with Carrie Underwood...so I made a note of it.
Yesterday I was talking with my massage therapist about the upcoming holidays. He asked how my brother was doing since he finished chemotherapy...then he went on to say that you don't realize just how small you are until you hear the words "cancer" come from the doctor's mouth.
My mom just received a call from my cousin. My Aunt fell and was airlifted to a hospital in Trenton with a brain bleed. That's all we know right now. And so I gave a little more thought to these words "so small" as I laid in bed tonight...and I got up and this is what I wrote.
Weave-sicle...
My cyclocross season came to a
screeching halt (literally) a few days before the PA State CX Championships. While I am mostly healed, a few seconds in the forearm plank position provides me with a painful reminder that I am not invincible.
I'm always amazed when I am able to rewind a situation...to watch it unfold and then find the silver lining in a cloud of gray. A few minutes after the crash my tire went flat. We pulled to the side of the road to fix it. During this time I had the opportunity to chat with someone in the group about my dog. She (a veterinarian) suggested that I take her in for a check up, so I did. The vet was concerned that Riley lost five pounds since the end of July. The results of the lab work were cause for further concern and an abdominal ultrasound has been scheduled.
I will forever have the vision of this crazy dog running into the woods to retrieve sticks that more closely resembled small trees and carrying them all the way back to the car. She stopped running a couple years ago and gave up on stairs this past year. She's slow to get up and has recently forced me to become a magician at meal time. As time passes, there are more and more reminders that she too is not invincible.
